Tutorial How to successfully pack and unpack .pak files

Discussion in 'Starbound Modding' started by SexualRhinoceros, Jan 26, 2014.

  1. Mackinz

    Mackinz The Waste of Time

    Actually, it is perfectly healthy. A simple question about why you would want to do that, given that it is far from the most ideal solution when it comes to playing the game, is the simplest thing you could answer. It's not "ridicule" and it is definitely not "off-topic", nor was it "rude" and, quite frankly, that you have taken it as such is a really insulting. In fact, if you would like to talk about off-topic posts, I would remind you that this thread is about unpacking and packing pak/modpack files and not changing how the game is fundamentally loaded, nor is it about how you take a simple question.

    But I will help you, all the same, even though you accuse me as such and wrote out a far longer response about how you felt about my post rather than a far shorter post answering it.

    In your Starbound folder, there are several folders. In Win32, Win64, osx, Linux32 and Linux64, there is a file called "sbboot.config" and every one of those files has a section labelled "assetSources" when opened in a text document editor like Notepad:

    Code:
      "assetSources" : [
        "../assets/packed.pak",
        "../assets/user"
      ],
    
    If you were to redirect the entries listed there, you could theoretically force the game to solely launch from a single folder. This is likely how the game launched way back before the introduction of the very useful packed files format.

    For example you could change it to:

    Code:
      "assetSources" : [
        "../assets/UnpackedAssets",
        "../assets/user"
      ],
    
    And it should load that folder instead of packed.pak.

    If that answered your question, you are welcome. I am sorry that you so strongly feel your motives should not be questioned, but I am still curious as to why you would want to run the game from unpacked assets because there is very little benefit to it at all. This is coming from my over two years playing and modding Starbound and knowing the pain of staring at a loading screen for a long time because of a ton of unpacked assets in my mods folder. But oh well.
     
  2. Brycen

    Brycen Phantasmal Quasar

    Hi i dont know if this thread was abandoned or not but, how do i use the windows file extractor? Can somebody give me a step by step guide on how to, I'd appreciate it!
     
  3. marceldp

    marceldp Void-Bound Voyager

    I Tried unpacking, failed, decided to stop, and now starbound quits everytime.

    re: ok nevermind i fixed it.
     
  4. logan2252

    logan2252 Void-Bound Voyager

    ok thanks for explanation now english please
     
  5. eksynn

    eksynn Giant Laser Beams

    thread! riiise from the dead~!

    ..anyway, how do i unpack a .modpak file?
     
  6. v6ooo

    v6ooo Space Kumquat

    Same way as a .pak. They're identical except that modpak also contains a pak.modinfo so it becomes a single-file mod.
     
  7. eksynn

    eksynn Giant Laser Beams

    Last edited: Jun 1, 2016
  8. Dolan

    Dolan Pangalactic Porcupine

  9. Mackinz

    Mackinz The Waste of Time

  10. Marxon

    Marxon Supernova

    Should I show the batch file I made?

    It's stupidly simple.
     
  11. Dolan

    Dolan Pangalactic Porcupine

    I'm really not aware of what's coming up (Haven't played for a while) but could you send a link where changes are explained ?
    So that i could change it in consequence and be ready for the next stable version ;)
     
  12. Mackinz

    Mackinz The Waste of Time

    The only way to really understand is to download Nightly for yourself. However, basically there is no giraffe_storage folder now and things got shifted around.
     
  13. Dolan

    Dolan Pangalactic Porcupine

    Downloaded Starbound_unstable, switched to nightly and then just notice that there is no more girafe_folder or anything similar.
    The "mods" folder is now at the root of the starbound folder.
    To make my ModPackHelper to work, just edit it and change the value of line 14
    From :
    Code:
    set starbound_folder=%~dp0..\..\
    To :
    Code:
    set starbound_folder=%~dp0..\
    (Just tell it that now you are one subfolder from root ".." instead of two "..\..").

    Edit : I pushed a new version of it (v0.10) on my dropbox storage

    To avoid any misunderstood with the current stable version, I'll wait this changes in a stable version to edit my tool homepage.
     
    eksynn and Mackinz like this.
  14. Thedestroyer1717

    Thedestroyer1717 Master Chief

    when i put everything in it say ((the file path) Is not an interl or externl command :/
     
  15. Dolan

    Dolan Pangalactic Porcupine

    Can you give us more info about your trouble ?
    - What is your Starbound version (Stable, Nightly) ?
    - Are you trying to extract manually or with my tool ?
    - If manually, what command lines have you typed ?
    - If with my tool, which version of it did you used ? Which OS are you using ?
     
  16. Thedestroyer1717

    Thedestroyer1717 Master Chief

    Didn't see your tool before. . .But it worked :D Ty
     
    Dolan likes this.
  17. quakeman00

    quakeman00 Pangalactic Porcupine

    manualy : "win32\asset_packer.exe" "HylotlExtraColors" "mods\LUNARPUMPKIN" "HylotlExtraColors.pak"
    didnt work and didnt work with your tool as well, itsay its packed but the mods dont apear
     
  18. eksynn

    eksynn Giant Laser Beams

    i wish this worked with the workshop's contents.pak files.. lol

    edit: any ideas on how i can unpack those?
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2016
  19. lornlynx

    lornlynx Cosmic Narwhal

    Copy the pak file into mods folder
    Shift+RightClick your Starbound folder -> Open Command Line here
    Code:
    "win32/asset_unpacker.exe" "mods/contents.pak" "mods/contents/"
     
    eksynn likes this.
  20. not working for me in cheerful giraffe 1.0
     

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